


Mediums

by MildSweet



Series: Definitions [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Character Study, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Implied/Referenced Suicide, John Watson's Blog, M/M, Past Mary Morstan/John Watson, Relationship Study, Slow Burn, The Pool Scene, Unconventional Format, mentions of the wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:13:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4816319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildSweet/pseuds/MildSweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John rarely talked about himself, always spoke in reflexes and relationships- sentiment.<br/>His writing was stuttering and rough and context-less. Sherlock wouldn't mention it. He felt like he had dissolved back there, in the water."</p>
<p>A study of John and Sherlock, through the word "medium."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mediums

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suitesamba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/gifts).



> for suitesamba, whose story "To The Nines" amazes me beyond belief (no matter how many times i read it).

 

**Medium (noun)**

**\---  
**   
I. 

**The nature of the surrounding environment, e.g. solid, liquid, gas, vacuum, or a specific substance such as a solvent.**

 

Sherlock read John's blog knowing that there were a lot of things John didn't like talking about, or didn't know how to write up, or shouldn't. Like how Jim Moriarty laughed, and how John threw them both into the pool, and how, somehow, they were both saved- or about himself. But John rarely talked about himself, always spoke in reflexes and relationships- sentiment.

His writing was stuttering and rough and context-less. Sherlock wouldn't mention it. He felt like he had dissolved back there, in the water.

 

 

**II.**

**A liquid base which carries pigment in paint.**

 

John was less of a conductor of light and more light itself, sight, color. John was gold sand, blue eyes, grey gunpowder, black gun, red, red, red.

 

 

**III.**

**Someone who supposedly conveys information from the spirit world.**

 

”I asked you for one more miracle. I asked you not to be dead.”

“I heard you.”

 

**IV.**

**The means or channel by which an aim is achieved.**

 

_Moriarty shot himself. That doesn't take good aim. Mary has good aim,_ John thought. _Mary has an unlicensed gun and good aim._

_She didn't shoot Magnussen, she shot Sherlock to save something- god knows what- but Sherlock had shot the man dead, and flown away, and_ come back _\- and-_

 

**V.**

**An average; sometimes the mathematical mean.**

 

“Oh,” John said, on a hot day in August, “it's my half-birthday.”

Sherlock held his violin and thought _t_ _he average m_ _ale lifespan in England is_ _seventy-nine_ _years old._ _John is thirty-nine point five years old._ _He_ _'s halfway there, he cannot die,_ _there's so much left,_ and Sherlock put down his violin, and Sherlock kissed John, and Sherlock said “Many happy returns.”

 

 

**VI.**

**A format for communicating or presenting information.**

 

Sherlock read John's blog knowing that there were a lot of things John didn't like talking about, or didn't know how to write up, or shouldn't. Like how Jim Moriarty laughed, and how John threw them both into the pool, and how they were both saved- or about himself. But John rarely talked about himself. He always talked about Sherlock.

 

 

**VII.**

**The mean or middle term of a syllogism, that by which the extremes are brought into connection.**

 

_(1) if we had world enough and time, your coyness would be tolerable; (2) we do not have sufficient world or time; (3) therefore, we must love at a faster rate than gentility or modesty permit._

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i hope you liked it.
> 
> the final italic section is from Paul Fussell's analysis of the poem "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell.


End file.
